Category Archives: Malta 1565

Early last year, one of my Friends suggested that he’d like to under take a group project, and wondered if he could enlist our collective brotherhood…..”The Starship Vorenus crew”.

He selected the Invasion of Malta by the Ottoman Turks in 1565. Opposing the vast armies of the Grand turk was another Tiny Band of brothers……The Knights of St John…..or as you might know them, the Knights Hospitaller.

Prior to this suggestion I was completely Ignorant of this Great moment in History. I purchased a book on the subject matter, and I have to say that not only did i learn a lot, but it was a genuinely interesting subject matter.

Space doesn’t allow for me to relate the story to you. However I do recommend that you look it up or buy a book on the subject.

Back to the project in hand…. The basic plan was for all of us to get together and wargame one of the key moments in the Invasion, namely the defence of Fort St Elmo.

A Fortress was duely built and we (the happy band) set about painting the knights, we were all very enthusiastic about the Hospitaller, went out and purchased what would, combined, make up the defence force. ( I shall make a post of these on another occasion)

Then it was the turn of the Turks…..1 year on we are still painting them, which really is disgraceful! but we have all been very busy on various other projects….too many in fact!

However, I recently bit the bullet, suspended everything else I was doing and set about the Ottoman forces! Once I started, I found the subject matter a lot more interesting than I thought I would.

Our main problem with creating this army was that firstly, where as most companies make all the armies of the period who fought the Turks, not many produce any suitable Turkish armies!!!!! it’s an Utterly neglected area of the minitures market. (I think the first company to produce a plastic box set is liable to clean up!)

So faced with limited resources and even more limited availability we spent sometime debating amongst ourselves as to what to do about this.

Eventually we decided that in addition to the few metal figures we had purchased we needed cheaper alternatives if we were to field a large army.

Plastic was the only cost effective way. After a bit of research we found that we could combine various plastic parts and come up with a passable selection of turkish forces. Wargames factory persians were pretty useful for parts…..but thankfully the Perry twins had a box set out for ACW Zouaves….those bodies would make up the main body (pardon the pun!) of Turkish Janissary troops!

So it was to be kitbashing and conversion….I personally enjoy that best of all!!!!

Although we maybe a long way from actually being completely historically accurate, we have something that “looks” to us, usable….certainly better than nothing……Our philosophy is not to sit around bitching about the lack of figures or give up because we can’t have something that is 100% accurate, that would leave us giving up. We don’t do that, we hope to inspire, we aim to be happy….ultimately we get what we want….positive action..”make it so”! Not very much stops us for long, nor should it stop you!